Longmont's homeless population jumps 34 percent

More than 1,100 homeless counted in January survey

LONGMONT -- Longmont's homeless population was about 34 percent higher on Jan. 28 than on a January night a year earlier.

Homeless by the numbers

The Metro Denver Homeless Initiative's report of the findings from its latest annual assessment of homelessness, a survey conducted during the week of Jan. 28, is available online at mdhi.org. Volunteers found and interviewed 473 homeless people in Longmont, and concluded that there were a total of 1,180 homeless people in the city at that point in time.

About 58 percent of the Longmont homeless people interviewed said they'd been homeless for less than one year; 25 percent said they'd been homeless between one and three years; and 17 percent said they'd been homeless for three or more years.

When asked about the causes of their homelessness, with more than one answer possible, 30 percent cited the loss of a job; 26 percent, housing costs; 22 percent, relationship or family break-ups or a death in the family; 14 percent, medical issues; and 13 percent, evictions or foreclosures.

About 38 percent of the total Longmont homeless population were single-parent households with children. Thirty-one percent were couples with children.

Of the 473 Longmont homeless people interviewed, 200 were men, 267 were women and one was a transgender individual.

The ages of the 473 Longmont homeless people interviewed: Fifteen were 12 to 17 years old; 80 were 18 to 24; 359 were 25 to 64; and 12 were 65 or older.

Of the 473 homeless interviewed, 225 said a member of their household had worked in the past month; 36 said they'd been discharged from jail, prison or a halfway house; 22 said they were veterans; and 45 said they'd recently left foster care.

Of all the 1,180 total homeless in the Longmont count, 14 people were categorized as chronically homeless and 279 as newly homeless. A total of 157 adults and children were reportedly homeless due to domestic violence.

Point-in-time survey results released by the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative report that on Jan. 28, 2013 -- the initial night this year's annual seven-county assessment of homelessness was administered -- a total of 1,180 people were homeless in Longmont.

The Jan. 23, 2012, survey put Longmont's homeless population at 883.

Kathy Fedler, coordinator of Longmont's Community Development Block Grant and affordable housing programs, said she was hoping the increase wouldn't be that big, but it wasn't a surprise, considering what nonprofit agencies and government organizations had been seeing in the community.

"Most of the increase was in families with children," Fedler said. That reflects a continuing negative economic situation in which many families were "pretty hard hit" and are still having a hard time finding jobs "and getting back into good economic shape."

Salazar said the surveys underscore the continuing need to identify and provide housing options so people can afford to live in the same community where they work.

"We've seen more people over the age of 60" who have become homeless, said Stacey Hiatt, executive director of Homeless Outreach Providing Encouragement (HOPE), adding that she has noticed more women, as well.

Fedler said, however, that one positive from this year's Longmont survey was that it turned up fewer chronically homeless individuals -- generally defined as someone who's been continually homeless for a year or more -- than in January 2012.

Longmont's January 2013 survey results were based on responses from 473 homeless individuals that volunteers interviewed, as well as information about another 707 homeless people -- children, spouses and others -- in their households.

The January 2013 metropolitan-area survey, which included Adams, Arapahoe, Broomfield, Boulder, Denver, Douglas and Jefferson counties, found a total of 11,167 homeless people, about 11.4 percent fewer than the 12,605 counted in January 2012.

Even so, homelessness "is not an issue just in Longmont," said HOPE's Hiatt. "It's an issue everywhere."

Boulder County's countywide homeless total grew by about 20 percent, rising from 1,970 in January 2012 to the 2,366.

The number of homeless counted in Boulder was essentially flat: 750 in 2012 and 748 this year.

Both Salazar and Hiatt noted that the annual metropolitan surveys are taken in the dead of winter, which they suggested can carry risks to vulnerable residents' health. Hiatt said the costs of a single illness, when a family or individual is living from paycheck to paycheck, can mean people finding themselves unable to pay the rent.

Also, Hiatt said, people who rely on outdoor jobs found themselves sometimes unable to work during and after heavy snows, a situation that left them short of income.

Last winter, Salazar said, "was a tough one" because of frigid temperatures. But she said that in the summer, with daily high temperatures frequently topping 90 degrees, it also can be "a high risk time" for homeless people's health.

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